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Issue #37 — Nov. 16, 2018

Dear readers,

Welcome to our weekly newsletter on global migration policy, with a U.S. focus. Exciting news: Give Me Your Tired is now on Twitter! Follow us there. Also, we’re out next week due to Thanksgiving, so we’ll return to your inbox Nov. 30.

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Many thanks,
Tania & Lolita

U.S. (Im)migration News

Asylum-seekers barred at border: President Donald Trump’s proclamation temporarily banning asylum eligibility for migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally has been in effect for a week. The policy is intended to push asylum-seekers to official ports of entry. There’s just one problem: It’s become difficult for them to cross legally due to worsening bottlenecks.

The American Civil Liberties Union, along with the Southern Poverty Law Center and Center for Constitutional Rights immediately sued over the new policy, saying federal law stipulates migrants may seek asylum no matter how they entered the United States (ACLU). A hearing will be held Monday.

Meanwhile, the first group of Central American “caravan” migrants — who were the impetus for the policy and Trump’s anti-immigrant midterm campaign rhetoric — have arrived at the port of entry at Tijuana. Most are LGBT and seek to use their status as members of a persecuted class to apply for asylum (NPR). But wait times to enter the U.S. now stretch for weeks and will take even longer once the rest of the caravan arrives (Vice News). U.S. troops are “hardening” official crossings by laying down barriers and blocking traffic lanes (BuzzFeed).

Hundreds of miles to the east, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited the deployment of some 5,900 troops at the border in Texas. Soldiers had questions on the purpose of their mission (BuzzFeed) which was criticized as a ploy to get midterm votes before last week’s election. The deployment could start downsizing as soon as next week (Reuters). Trump has not tweeted about the caravan since the election.

What we’re watching:

  • Nielsen on the way out at DHS (maybe): Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, unable to deliver the border crackdown that Trump requested, may be on her way out (Washington Post). She had defended the president this summer as news of family separations came to light and argued it was not the department’s policy (Vox). Some say Thomas Homan, the former acting director of ICE who is even more of an immigration hardliner, could replace her—which would put the department’s focus firmly on border security (Politico).
     
  • Census in court: The 2020 census is at the center of six lawsuits, the first of which began this week in a Manhattan court. The cases hinge on whether the census can include a question about citizenship that plaintiffs say is meant to scare immigrants from participating (Bloomberg). The Trump administration argues the new question is necessary to get better citizenship data and enforce the Voting Rights Act.
     
  • More deportations for legal immigrants: A new policy to take effect next week could result in more legal immigrants facing deportation. Under new guidance, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials will have more leeway to issue a “notice to appear” in immigration court if an immigrant visa application has been denied for several different visa categories (Miami Herald). NTAs traditionally mark the start of deportation proceedings. Until now, immigrants had more time to re-petition for other ways to stay in the U.S. legally if their applications were denied. The policy has so far not impacted employment-based visas (Politico).
What we're reading:
  • Washington Post: Trump’s nominee to lead ICE said at his Senate confirmation hearing he won’t rule out separating migrant families again.
  • Mother Jones: ICE wants to pack more immigrants into crowded detention centers by making them sleep in plastic Stack-A-Bunk beds designed for prisons.
  • Politico: California federal judge signals he’ll approve settlement to allow parents separated from their children at border another chance to apply for asylum.
  • Los Angeles Times: With or without a criminal record, some immigrants spend many years in detention.
  • New Food Economy (report): Immigrant food stamp use plummeting while food insecurity among new immigrant families nearly doubled in the last decade.
  • Quartz: Documents show the Drug Enforcement Administration and ICE have hidden surveillance cameras inside streetlights nationwide.
  • Daily Beast: ICE is detaining a record 44,000 immigrants. That’s 4,000 more than Congress has funded.
  • CNN: Did an aggressive anti-immigration platform cost GOP candidates the House?
  • The New York Times (opinion): Trump says he wants immigrants to come in legally. So why are more legal immigrants being rejected than ever?
  • PRI: Why one Pakistani family took sanctuary in a Connecticut church.
  • Buzzfeed News: The Dominican Republic’s disastrous policy of stripping citizenship from residents of Haitian descent provides a case study on birthright citizenship for the U.S.
  • Reveal: The government agency that pays for unaccompanied migrant children’s lawyers has for years threatened to cut off funding if advocates challenge a child’s detention.
  • Reuters: U.S. only country to vote against advancing UN Global Compact on Refugees over sovereignty concerns.  
Longreads
  • The New York Times: Three immigrant women were sexually assaulted by a Border Patrol agent in 2014. Now their civil lawsuit is shedding light on the agency’s hiring practices.
  • Civil Eats: Months after Hurricane Florence, North Carolina’s undocumented farmworkers struggle to recover amid fears of deportation.
  • Bloomberg: The war inside 7-11: How the company is partnering with immigration authorities to battle its franchisees.
  • Politico: The young Texans helping turn refugees into Americans.
Fun fact: Mexico is the top country of origin for unauthorized immigrants in most states. But there’s more variation when it comes to No. 2. Learn more about undocumented immigrants in the U.S. here. (Via Migration Policy Institute)
Around the World

Rohingya refugees resist repatriation: An operation to return Rohingya refugees to Myanmar from Bangladesh was halted Thursday, “after officials were unable to find anyone who wanted to return,” and frightened refugees protested the plan (Associated Press). Some 700,000 Rohingya are living in Bangladeshi camps after fleeing a bloody campaign of violence carried out by the Myanmar military in August 2017. Bangladesh’s refugee commissioner said the country would continue trying to motivate them to leave.

Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed to a bilateral repatriation plan last month. Earlier in the week, Bangladesh sent troops to stop refugees from leaving the camps to evade repatriation (The Guardian). It was the latest sign that the returns may be involuntary—which would violate the principle of nonrefoulement under international law. UNHCR said it “does not believe current conditions in Rakhine State are conducive to the voluntary, safe, dignified, and sustainable return of refugees.” Amnesty International and a coalition of 42 NGOs have all condemned the plan, calling it reckless and premature. Related: The uphill battle to forge peace in Myanmar’s Rakhine State (IRIN). See also: The untold story of UNHCR’s history of involvement in involuntary returns of Rohingya refugees (Humanitarian Practice Network). And finally: China offers Myanmar support for Rohingya issue after U.S. rebuke (Reuters).

Cameroon's exodus worsens: The number of refugees who have fled from western Cameroon into Nigeria passed 30,000 last week, according to UNHCR. Most are spread across a large area where it is difficult to provide for their needs. The displacement follows a conflict that broke out in  2016 between the government and separatists protesting the treatment of Cameroon’s Anglophone minority (Quartz). The government has cracked down on protests by English speakers, including by shutting down internet access for three months last year in regions where they're concentrated (Access Now). As many as 436,000 people may have been internally displaced.

What we’re reading:

Latin America:

  • Reuters: Migrant arrivals in Mexican border city of Tijuana strains overcrowded shelters.
  • BuzzFeed: Racist backlash to migrant caravan is building in Facebook and WhatsApp groups in Mexico.
  • Voice of America: Colombia has established its first camp for Venezuelan refugees, as the total number who’ve fled passes 3 million.
  • ReliefWeb: 3,331 migrants from the multiple ‘caravans’ of Central Americans have applied for asylum in Mexico.

Europe:

  • Euractiv: Six EU countries have withdrawn from the UN Global Compact on Migration.
  • BuzzFeed: Far-right YouTuber’s secret recording of NGO workers in Greek refugee camp could threaten safety of refugees and volunteers.
  • The Guardian: ‘They didn’t give a damn:’ New video footage shows Croatian police brutality against migrants.
  • Daily Sabah: Turkish villagers report migrants being beaten by Greek border police and forced back over the border.
  • Frontex: 2018 is on track to see the fewest illegal border crossings into the EU since 2013.

Middle East

  • Associated Press: Dozens of migrants have barricaded themselves in a container ship and are refusing to disembark in Libya, saying the country is too dangerous for them.
  • The Guardian (photos): Syrian refugee children being integrated into local schools in Lebanon and Jordan.
  • ReliefWeb: Almost 200,000 Yazidis are still displaced and living in camps in Iraq.

Africa

  • IRIN: Ethiopia-Eritrea peace deal leads to surge of Eritrean refugees.
  • Teen Vogue: Humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo means internally displaced people can’t go home.

Asia-Pacific  

  • The Guardian: International authorities stopped hundreds of would-be migrants, mostly in Indonesia, from boarding boats to Australia in past year.
  • Al Jazeera English: Refugees in Australian-run camp on Manus island ask APEC leaders to help them go free.
Miscellaneous Things We Love
  • The New York Times: How refugees new to the United States prepare their first Thanksgiving meals.
  • #CoolProjectAlert: Asylum City, from our friends over at 90 Days 90 Voices, will explore the life and death consequences of seeking asylum in Chicago.

  • NPR (listen): A toy monkey escaped Nazi Germany—and reunited a family decades later.

  • The New York Times: New studies show that migration and the place a person calls “home” change the composition of the trillions of microbes that live in the human gut. 

  • Al Jazeera: In Lebanon, Palestinian refugees tell their stories via their own news channel.

  • Longreads: When you carry all that you love with you: Journalist Alice Driver’s beautiful essay on the migrant caravan.

Eritrean refugee children recently resettled to Canada experience their first snow. (Via Rebecca Davies/Ripple Refugee Project)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tania Karas is a freelance foreign correspondent-for-hire focused on migration policy and foreign affairs, as well as a contributing editor for PRI. Her most recent story is After an ugly campaign for immigrants, midterms spark a glimmer of hope. She is a Master's candidate in international human rights law at the University of Oxford. She writes for Reuters, Refugees Deeply, IRIN and others, and was previously a staff reporter for the New York Law Journal. Find her on Twitter at @TaniaKaras.

Lolita Brayman is a U.S.-based immigration attorney focusing on refugee and asylum issues and a staff attorney with the Defending Vulnerable Populations Project with CLINIC. She holds an M.A. in conflict resolution and mediation and previously worked as an editor at the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. She’s written for Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, Reuters, the Guardian, National Geographic, among others. Find her on Twitter at @lolzlita.


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